Fedora Activity Day at SCaLE 9x: Sysadmin Study Group

Wed, Feb 23, 2011

I believe it’s a very common desire to improve your skillset as a tech geek. I believe there are many people out there who just want to learn how to do a few things so they can get their job done. I also believe that many people would like to make more money at their job, either as a System Administrator or to become a sysadmin.

The question is, how do you gain the skills to become a better sysadmin?

In my opinion, one of the best ways to gain experience quickly, is to participate in training classes, such as the amazing classes run by Red Hat. But sometimes, those cost a ton of money, and the current company doesn’t want to foot the bill. Of course, you are trying to save your pennies to get to there, but that can take time.

However, there are cheaper alternatives. I believe the community is the best way overall to gain this knowledge. While it takes a bit more time to get there, over time, you can learn a major portion of what it takes to become a skilled sysadmin.

Local User Groups

I suggest attending a Local User Group that specializes in Linux administration. These groups take one topic per month and can educate you (usually) for free. I really enjoy my LUGs and have gained tons of knowledge over the years.

Conference Events

Many conferences, like SCaLE, offer space to communities to run day long activities. The Fedora Activity Day at SCaLE is a good example of where you can quickly gain skills as a system administrator for a very low cost. If you are looking to improve your system administration skillset, I highly recommend attending the FAD at SCaLE this year.

Sysadmin Study Group at SCaLE 9x

The study group is about helping you become a better system administrator and there will be experts on hand to help you study. We will also be providing an installation server with Fedora 14, which will be used to build your virtual or physical machine and give you real hands on experience with the sysadmin tasks.

Machine Requirements

KVM capable system with approximately 20GB of disk space free
or
Physical Laptop with ethernet and PXE (preferred), USB or CD/DVD booting capability